Dismantling patriarchy in all forms, including misogyny, white supremacy, other race-based supremacies, heteronormativity, imperialism, autocracy, and colonialism, is critical to achieving transformational social, gender, racial, and economic justice. Humanity’s survival through the formidable challenges ahead depends on achieving wide-scale social stability and securing peace within and among nations. Gender equality is the social salve the world desperately needs.

The Global Women’s Funding Movement coined a term to explain this phenomenon—the “Woman Effect.” Today, it may be called the “Feminist Effect.” It’s the correlation of transformational social healing and democracy strengthening that happens with gender-inclusive feminist approaches to critical issues and opportunities. For example, national security is moored to women’s rights. The more significant the gender gap between the treatment of men and women in a society, the more likely a country is to be involved in war. Countries that oppress women are typically the ones to instigate conflicts and wage higher levels of violence when in them. Conversely, countries with protections from gender-based violence are vastly more secure in myriad ways, whether the issue is food security, risk of terrorism, or the peaceful resolution of disputes with other nations.

Women’s voting rights, reproductive and LGBTQIA+ rights, women’s and girls’ access to education, legal equity, freedom from violence, and widespread economic independence all took tenacious women’s movements, some persisting for a century, to achieve progress. Massive gender justice victories have only ever been won by the insistence of women’s and feminist movements, as described in the next section of this chapter.

Chapter 1: Beginnings

We live in an era of inspiring women’s movements. Today, women, girls, and gender-expansive people are uniting in unprecedented numbers, forming diverse coalitions that are dynamic, agile, and highly effective in addressing humanity’s most pressing and deeply rooted problems. Today’s women’s movements, some well-established and others newly forming, amount to the greatest force ever summoned against gender inequity, patriarchy, racial injustice, economic injustice, autocracy, violence, and climate collapse. Crucially, women’s movements are modeling through their practices and building a vision for an equitable and just world through their impact. The emergence of so many women’s movements today and their rapid spread across the globe is in response to the rising rates of catastrophe, growing inequality, especially gender inequality, and escalating threats to democracy. It also reflects a growing desire for female autonomy and voice and a growing sense of self-worth across the planet.

Throughout millennia, women have united out of necessity and become the primary forces committed to undoing patriarchy’s self-serving systems and forging a vision for a reimagined world. This was true of the first known women’s movement, the Female Fury at the Forum, in 195 bc, when single Roman women united to demand financial freedom. It was true of the Women’s March on Versailles in 1789 when women united to fight famine and ignited the French Revolution, triggering a global wave of democracy that continues today. It is true of the Nigerian women’s movement against British colonial rule, which, under the leadership of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, challenged taxation and mobilized over 20,000 women as a formidable resistance that helped bring an end to British rule. It is true of the fierce modern-day women-led movements, including #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, #NiaUnaMenos, the Kandakas, and #MahsaAmini, that tackle oppressive social norms, making society more understanding of women’s needs and rights.

By Christine Grumm and Stephanie Clohesy, on behalf of the Co-Authors

As we said yesterday, the stories in this book are born from a quiet revolution created in the partnership between women at the source of social injustice and women’s foundations and donors:

• Safetipin is a social organization that works with urban stakeholders, including governments, to make public spaces safer and more inclusive for women. Piloted in India with seed funding from the Lotus Circle, supporting the Women’s Empowerment Program of the Asia Foundation, the project has now been implemented in 18 countries.
• The Dr. Beatriz María Solís Policy Institute at the Women’s Foundation California trains women community leaders in public policy and has worked to conceptualize and pass over 50 new pro-women laws or local policies in the state of California.
• The Marea Verde, or “Green Wave” women’s movement that worked for years to legalize abortion across Latin America, has been supported by women’s funds such as the International Women’s Health Coalition, Fòs Feminista.
• Women’s Foundation of Minnesota provides funding support and leadership for the passage of the Safe Harbor Law and No Wrong Door for sexually exploited youth.
• Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. In 2002, Leymah Gbowee negotiated a grant from the Global Fund for Women for the Women of Liberia’s Mass Action for Peace. In Leymah’s words, “We women, we are tired of war.” Over time, the women organized collaborative efforts that led to reformers winning the war and electing Liberia’s first woman President (Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ).

By Christine Grumm and Stephanie Clohesy, on behalf of the Co-Authors

The Global Women’s Funding Movement has been innovating a new kind of philanthropy—one that has its roots throughout the ages—in how women come together to gather and share resources. The movement is guided by the voices of experience who have organized and formalized women’s “share culture” by creating women’s funds, foundations, giving circles, and networks worldwide.

The idea of sharing money, property, and other assets is new compared to the bureaucratic models of philanthropy common in our era. Moreover, it is shaped by egalitarian and participatory values, a belief that all people have gifts to share within flatter organizational models that help things to happen faster. To accomplish this, the women leading their funding movement have normalized the practices of trust, transparency, shared power, and intersectionality of racism, colonialism, sexism, sexual orientation, disability, classism, and casteism in ways that upend traditional philanthropy.

The Global Women’s Funding Movement has done this work with limited financial resources but explosive organizing, leadership, and authentic analysis of both problems and solutions from the ground up.

By Christine Grumm and Stephanie Clohesy, on behalf of the Co-Authors

A core group of women’s funding activists/writers/observers gathered and grew into a group of 10 co-authors who conceptualized and designed the overall story. Meet the authors here.

• Ndana Bofu-Tawamba, CEO, Urgent Action Fund Africa
• Ruby Bright, Past President and CEO, Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis
• Stephanie Clohesy, Independent Consultant, former Board Chair, Women’s Funding Network
• Christine Grumm, Independent Consultant and Past President and CEO, Women’s Funding Network
• Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, Former President and CEO, Global Fund for Women
• Helen LaKelly Hunt, Founder and President, HLH Family Foundation
• Ana Oliveira, President and CEO, The New York Women’s Foundation
• Laura Risimini, Independent Consultant
• Jane Sloane, Senior Director, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality with The Asia Foundation
• Jessica Tomlin, Chief Executive Director, Equality Fund

Over the course of this project, they in turn, reached out to other innovators and eyewitnesses with first-hand experience in the Global Women’s Funding Movement; some are quoted in the book, some served as critical readers and advisors on early drafts, and all shaped and reshaped the stories to produce as robust and honest a narrative as possible.

Books stop time for the reader.

In exchange for your attention, books animate a moment in time so that readers can get a sense of a complex landscape that is not otherwise visible or well-known.

The challenge of this book—despite its static form—is to describe a historical movement that is alive, surging, yet still evolving. It aims to immerse readers in the past while also looking toward the near future to fully grasp the broader implications of a complex global movement whose influence spans multiple geographies of diverse communities and cultures, all driven by myriad goals and purposes. This book breathes life into a world that might otherwise seem hidden from view by weaving together intersecting and shared journeys captured through a diverse ensemble of shared voices. The world of women’s philanthropy has many surprises and even more shocking truths that are revealed through acts of courage and defiance. The Uprising of Women in Philanthropy is a book that will elevate your appreciation of what has been and still needs to be accomplished.

It tells the story of the Global Women’s Funding Movement as its unique cause parallels and supports women’s movements worldwide, serving as social justice innovators for women, girls, and gender-expansive people. The Uprising in Women’s Philanthropy has gathered many voices to tell the origin stories of how the Global Women’s Funding Movement began over 50 years ago, embedded in the women’s movement, and grew into its distinctive movement. More importantly, it focuses on how women have amassed and currently use money to wield the necessary power to achieve equity and justice in the world. Although the Global Women’s Funding Movement is about money and power, it is not about the financial power of the individual. Rather, it’s the revelation of how collectively that money is applied to support the women, girls, and gender-expansive people doing the hard work across continents and communities, wherever justice is threatened in the lives of all people.

To truly understand the Global Women’s Funding Movement, it would be ideal to hear and see what has been happening everywhere at once. The Uprising of Women in Philanthropy comes as close as possible to conveying the extensive human drama of building a funding movement. This movement has turned traditional philanthropic norms upside down while venturing into the challenging and often dangerous edges of women’s lives where change is most needed and where few, if any other, philanthropists dare to tread!